Official Foodie Thread

[JPH704]

Originally Posted by Litos

wife made us bacon wrapped avocado slices yesterday for a snack.....

those look good

[dtn]

Originally Posted by ///M3_DCT

those look good

+1

[dtn]

Saw this online. Need to try this.

[Sedan_Clan]

All of this bacon wrapped goodness looks so good. Bacon (..both pork and turkey) is a huge staple in my diet. So good!

[Seminole]

Whipped this up for dinner.

[NemesisX]

Originally Posted by adobeee

Sliced Niman Ranch rib eye with fiscalini cheddar pearl tapioca and Rutherford red wine reduction at La Toque in Napa Valley, CA

I made reservations for 8 at La Toque for this upcoming labor day weekend and had to cancel because they don't offer salmon, redfish, or sea bass as a main dish and my mom refuses to eat anything else. She won't eat swordfish. Where's the first world problems thread

[adobeee]

Originally Posted by NemesisX

I made reservations for 8 at La Toque for this upcoming labor day weekend and had to cancel because they don't offer salmon, redfish, or sea bass as a main dish and my mom refuses to eat anything else. She won't eat swordfish. Where's the first world problems thread

Haha, nice. Swordfish tends to be a little "harder" in texture, but still tastes fantastic. Were you shooting for the Chef's Tasting Menu or the four course?

Hope the pics below will change her mind..

1st: Chesapeake Bay soft shell crab with fregula sarda and pesto


2nd: Japanese kisu "crudo" with pickled green tomato and fig leaf oil


3rd: Morrocan spiced Liberty Farm duck breast with fresh chick peas and roasted piquillo pepper

[PSUSMU]

Originally Posted by Seminole

Whipped this up for dinner.

Looks good, but I hate when people post "zomg look at the meal I just made".. and it's just a piece of meat in the center of an empty plate.

[wrsbmw]

Grew up in Houston, live in Austin, have house in LaPorte on the bay, love fried seafood and until Pappadeaux took over where Victoria Station was in Austin, there was no decent seafod here. Course we have Trulucks since about 1999 or so but it's not Pappadeaux which has multiple Houston locations. The banana crepe isn't on the menu for a long time but we always order it and they always bring it. I like the softshell crab and fried shrimp.

That's my youngest daughter hugging me and my youngest son and grandson eating that banana crepe.

[NemesisX]

Originally Posted by wrsbmw

Grew up in Houston, live in Austin, have house in LaPorte on the bay, love fried seafood and until Pappadeaux took over where Victoria Station was in Austin, there was no decent seafod here. Course we have Trulucks since about 1999 or so but it's not Pappadeaux which has multiple Houston locations. The banana crepe isn't on the menu for a long time but we always order it and they always bring it. I like the softshell crab and fried shrimp.

That's my youngest daughter hugging me and my youngest son and grandson eating that banana crepe.

Awesome, it looks like we have a quite a few Austinites in this thread!

My dad's a huge fan of Pappadeux as well. Good seafood is pretty hard to find in Austin as you say. I've found a couple of diamonds in the rough.

If you're a fan of crab cakes, I think Bartlett's ( http://bartlettsaustin.com/ ) has one of the better crab cakes in Austin. They use jumbo lump crab and very little filler compared to most other restaurants. I will warn you though, the accompanying pommery mustard sauce is a little disagreeable to my palate. It's not awful but it's a little strange. Personally I'm a big fan of the baby back ribs (hill country bbq sauce notwithstanding) at Bartlett's because they brine them for 24-48 hours.

There's another restaurant - The Carillon ( http://www.thecarillonrestaurant.com/ ) that has a great Chilean seabass (mero) dish. The carrot-apple-ginger reduction is terrific and the fish is prepared well. The other item I would recommend as a must-have is the pork belly. Make sure no one at your table orders the risotto. It's not very good. Carillon doesn't make risotto properly "runny." It's too dry.

Interestingly neither of these two restaurants are bonafide seafood restaurants. I'll try to add more suggestions as I think of them.


Edit: See my post below for more suggestions (fried shrimp).

[NemesisX]

Originally Posted by adobeee

Haha, nice. Swordfish tends to be a little "harder" in texture, but still tastes fantastic. Were you shooting for the Chef's Tasting Menu or the four course?

Hope the pics below will change her mind..

1st: Chesapeake Bay soft shell crab with fregula sarda and pesto


2nd: Japanese kisu "crudo" with pickled green tomato and fig leaf oil


3rd: Morrocan spiced Liberty Farm duck breast with fresh chick peas and roasted piquillo pepper

Aww man you're killing me with these pictures

My dad, uncle, cousin, brother, aunt, and I all love to eat anything and everything. My mom's the picky one of the group. I'm trying to find a good restaurant that offers a "conservative" fish dish.

My parents went to SF a couple of months ago and my mom loved Michael Chiarello's Bottega, so that's certainly an option. Any thoughts on that place?

[NemesisX]

Oh, wrsbmw, I do have one more suggestion. You said you love fried seafood (fried shrimp included, I presume?).

There's a place called Chinatown on mopac ( http://chinatown-mopac.com/austin/dim-sum/ ) that has dim sum every Sunday. They have some of the best salt and pepper shrimp I've ever tasted. The fried casing is just phenomenally delicious. They doubly fry their prawns, so you end up with a beautiful crunchy, salty, moist, savory casing.

Warning: Chinatown for lunch and dinner is a very, very different experience. Their food offerings for lunch and dinner by and large are not good. I'd only recommend going for dim sum on Sundays.

Second thing to note - there are probably 3 or 4 restaurants in Austin called
"chinatown" which makes things rather confusing if you're trying to look the place up on google. Just beware of that.

Third - you need to have the patience of a saint to dine at chinatown during dim sum. You'll see waiters and waitresses roll around with carts of food and you have to wait your turn. However, ordering the salt and pepper shrimp is different. Don't wait for it to come via cart. Flag down a waiter and order it separately. They'll rarely have the salt and pepper shrimp floating around on a cart or two but it's very rare and it's completely acceptable to order it separately, as it's considered "special" dim sum (according to their classification).

Whenever I go to chinatown for dim sum with my family I pretty much exclusively order the salt and pepper shrimp. You'll need a few orders for the table. I can down 3 or 4 orders on my own

Apart from that we usually stick to a heavy diet of their shrimp dumplings with chilli oil, but definitely be adventurous when you go as they have a great selection.

[wrsbmw]

Originally Posted by NemesisX

Awesome, it looks like we have a quite a few Austinites in this thread!


If you're a fan of crab cakes, I think Bartlett's ( http://bartlettsaustin.com/ ) has one of the better crab cakes in Austin. They use jumbo lump crab and very little filler compared to most other restaurants. I will warn you though, the accompanying pommery mustard sauce is a little disagreeable to my palate. It's not awful but it's a little strange. Personally I'm a big fan of the baby back ribs (hill country bbq sauce notwithstanding) at Bartlett's because they brine them for 24-48 hours.


Edit: See my post below for more suggestions (fried shrimp).

You might recognize my daughter if you were/are regular at Bartletts. She was a hostess there all last year and then moved to North where she s now. She is in college now but she worked at Bartletts in high school and last summer. It was this spring that she started at North.

The ribs at Bartletts are my wife's favorite. The place used to be Houston's and the guy that it's named for was the manager from the day it opened. When Houston's decided to close it, he bought it from them and changed the name but not much about the menu. He had a heart attack not too long after buying it out, kind of a sad story.

I live down at the other end of Greystone on Valburn. We have been eating at Chinatown for as long as it's been open. The first one was the one out on Bee Caves. We don't do dim sum because my wife found out there is chicken's feet in some of the soup. When that happened, dim sum was never tried again. That was way back in the 90s at Tien Hong over on Burnet Road. I like Chinatown though, the regular menu has some good stuff on it but it's kind of pricey. We also go to the sushi place below it.

Now to the Carillon, that is at the AT&T conference center which my first cousin is the general manager for. I haven't eaten there but my oldest daughter who lives in Plano had a sorority get together there with some of her old sisters at some kind of alumni event about a month ago and said it was great. I probably need to try it.

[Litos]

shrimp and avocado tostadas......

2 of them got crema only - the other two got crema and tapatio...

#mexicanproblems

[NemesisX]

Originally Posted by wrsbmw

You might recognize my daughter if you were/are regular at Bartletts. She was a hostess there all last year and then moved to North where she s now. She is in college now but she worked at Bartletts in high school and last summer. It was this spring that she started at North.

The ribs at Bartletts are my wife's favorite. The place used to be Houston's and the guy that it's named for was the manager from the day it opened. When Houston's decided to close it, he bought it from them and changed the name but not much about the menu. He had a heart attack not too long after buying it out, kind of a sad story.

I live down at the other end of Greystone on Valburn. We have been eating at Chinatown for as long as it's been open. The first one was the one out on Bee Caves. We don't do dim sum because my wife found out there is chicken's feet in some of the soup. When that happened, dim sum was never tried again. That was way back in the 90s at Tien Hong over on Burnet Road. I like Chinatown though, the regular menu has some good stuff on it but it's kind of pricey. We also go to the sushi place below it.

Now to the Carillon, that is at the AT&T conference center which my first cousin is the general manager for. I haven't eaten there but my oldest daughter who lives in Plano had a sorority get together there with some of her old sisters at some kind of alumni event about a month ago and said it was great. I probably need to try it.

I wouldn't be surprised! I stick out like a sore thumb at Bartlett's because I solo dine there often and I order the same thing every time (ribs and fries). For whatever reason the combination of my age, dining frequency, and ordering consistency piques the interest of waiters/waitresses.

Just hearing the name 'Tien Hong' brings back great memories for me. My younger brother and I grew up with Tien Hong's dim sum. I still think they had the best steamed shrimp dumplings of any dim sum restaurant in Austin to this day. I loved their coating. It was doughy and savory and had a nice 'bite' to it. I also loved their chili oil. I really miss that place.

I'm over near the intersection of 360 and Westlake Dr. (basically one turn South along 360 in Davenport ranch) and so I get a lot of mileage out of the restaurants located west/northwest and in the domain. Bartlett's, too, is essentially a straight shot along 2222 from 360 (and a great drive to boot, I love that windy road! It's second only to 2244/Bee Caves Rd West towards the galleria on being ideal for spirited driving)

I've actually never tried Musashino! I'm not really big on sushi, but everyone usually raves about Uchi and Uchiko being the best sushi places in Austin. I personally think they're both a little overrated, but they're good. They have some interesting dessert selections as well.

[P1]

Originally Posted by wrsbmw

You might recognize my daughter if you were/are regular at Bartletts. She was a hostess there all last year and then moved to North where she s now. She is in college now but she worked at Bartletts in high school and last summer. It was this spring that she started at North.

The ribs at Bartletts are my wife's favorite. The place used to be Houston's and the guy that it's named for was the manager from the day it opened. When Houston's decided to close it, he bought it from them and changed the name but not much about the menu. He had a heart attack not too long after buying it out, kind of a sad story.

I live down at the other end of Greystone on Valburn. We have been eating at Chinatown for as long as it's been open. The first one was the one out on Bee Caves. We don't do dim sum because my wife found out there is chicken's feet in some of the soup. When that happened, dim sum was never tried again. That was way back in the 90s at Tien Hong over on Burnet Road. I like Chinatown though, the regular menu has some good stuff on it but it's kind of pricey. We also go to the sushi place below it.

Now to the Carillon, that is at the AT&T conference center which my first cousin is the general manager for. I haven't eaten there but my oldest daughter who lives in Plano had a sorority get together there with some of her old sisters at some kind of alumni event about a month ago and said it was great. I probably need to try it.

My only issue with the Carillon is that although the food and service is wonderful, the atmosphere is just plain lacking. It's for this reason I probably will no go eat there again...

[wrsbmw]

Originally Posted by Litos

shrimp and avocado tostadas......

2 of them got crema only - the other two got crema and tapatio...

#mexicanproblems

pretty tasty looking there, Lito.

[adobeee]

For anyone who is around the Gilroy area..

http://gilroygarlicfestival.com/fest...food-beverage/

[adobeee]

Originally Posted by NemesisX

Aww man you're killing me with these pictures

My dad, uncle, cousin, brother, aunt, and I all love to eat anything and everything. My mom's the picky one of the group. I'm trying to find a good restaurant that offers a "conservative" fish dish.

My parents went to SF a couple of months ago and my mom loved Michael Chiarello's Bottega, so that's certainly an option. Any thoughts on that place?

HAha! Haven't tried it yet, but thanks for giving a recommendation.

[rjpeaks]

thanks for sharing WRS - nice looking familia.


you may have heard of the ramen burger - this is the saimin burger!

google saimin if you aren't familiar - (hint - hawaii)

[Litos]

went to Yaos on Westheimer (Yao Ming's restaurant)....

hot Jasmine Tea Flower

Cashew Chicken and Shrimp

[upstatedoc]

Originally Posted by dtn

Saw this online. Need to try this.

wait, how'd they do that?